Lets me be upfront here, The Capitol Albums, Vol. 2 is excellent, but it
doesnt come close to The Capitol Albums, Vol 1. The main reason is that, like volume 1,
these are four more of the US released Capitol Records'
Beatles albums (The Early Beatles, Beatles VI,
Help! and Rubber Soul), and for this batch, the US LPs were lacking big time
to their UK counter parts. In fact, what US fans will learn from this package of CDs (if
they didnt already know) is that on Help!
and Rubber Soul (the two best LPs out of the 4
found in this package), they were ripped off big time, especially on Help!  I'll get to why that was so in the
reviews below for those two albums.

- The Album's Package -

Below I
will review each individual album, and like volume
1, this collection comes with both the stereo and mono releases of each song, but
I'll only list the songs once.

This
album's packaging is well improved over volume 1s. Like volume 1, each CD comes in its own album sleeve -
and they are the same sleeves that were used when these albums were first released on
vinyl - plus, the CDs themselves look like the old vinyl record. The improvement over
volume 1 is how this package was put together.
The CDs will not fall out of the case when you try to open them up, as they do with
volume 1. The enclosed booklet also has better
info than the booklet that came with volume 1, but
still, that isnt why one buys this stuff. So lets talk about the
music ..

THE EARLY BEATLES

Released
 March 22, 1965, on Capitol Records. Produced by
George
Martin

This album
consists of 11 of the 14 tracks from the UK LP Please
PleaseMe.The truth is, it didnt sell well for a Beatles album when released, peaking only
at #43 on the charts, since all of these songs had already been released earlier in the US
on the Vee-Jay label LP Introducing The Beatles. Vee-Jay
at first owned the temporary rights to these songs. As soon as Vee-Jay's rights expired,
Capitol could not wait to cash in on these songs and The Early Beatles was
released. In time it would have made perfect sense to do this, as Introducing The Beatles would go out of print,
but they should have waited a few more years till they did, by then they would have sold
even more copies.

Overall an
excellent collection of the earliest Beatles songs. Best ones found on here were their
first two ever released singles, Please Please Me and Love Me Do,
with both songs featuring John Lennons harmonica, to give the songs a blues feel.My other two favorites on this album are: the cover
of Twist & Shout  John sings one of the best ever lead vocals on a
cover song here, he just rips this songs lyrics apart! Then one of the first songs
that Lennon wrote in his early teens, after being inspired by a song his late mother used
to sing to him as a child, Listen, Do You Want to Know a Secret. Sung by
George Harrison, it is also great. Funny that George hated the way he sounds on the song,
feeling he wasnt yet a true lead vocalist, but I must disagree, I loved this song
the first time I heard it, and I still do today.

I also dig
the cover of Chains, and heck, Ringo Starrs lead vocal on
Boys is very much underrated by most, as is the bands output on this
song, including Paul McCartneys great bass line. This song really rocks! One last
song note, in regard to what Paul claims to being the worst ever recorded Beatles song:
A Taste of Honey. I have to say no way to that. Pauls lead vocals save
this song; yes, this one does contain the Beatles worst ever backing vocals by far, very
bad indeed, but overall, it might not be a great song, but it is okay and not their worst.

Perhaps
this album really should not have been made, not in the way it was put together anyway,
clearly the weakest official released US Beatles album out there. Yet it went to number 1 on
the charts, since any new material that Capitol Records would release by the Fabs at this
point in time, was gonna sell big, and this did.

Four of
the songs on here come from the UK LP Beatles For
Sale. Also included was the hit single Eight Day a Week along with its
B side, Yes It Is. Since Capitol always released 12 songs per
album, to fill out the album, they took two songs that the Beatles had recorded, and then
rejected, and never released in the UK, You
Like Me Too Much and Tell Me
What You See. Finally, being two songs short for an album, Capitol got the Beatles
to actually made a special trip to the studio to record two covers that they had been
playing for years live, Bad Boy and Dizzy Miss Lizzy. That turned
out to the best thing about Beatles IV, since
these two great heavy duty rockers never would have been recorded otherwise.

But still, as far as a Beatles LP goes, this one
isnt full of great songs. Eight Day a Week is great, but
its the only true ten found on here. Next two best songs are the two
songs mentioned above, Bad Boy, and Dizzy Miss Lizzy - I love the
early acid guitar on this one. Then you have I Dont Want To Spoil the
Party which is also excellent; it should be noted that John Lennon sings the lead on
all of these songs, he was truly a step ahead of Paul McCartney at this point.

I
Need You " by Harrison,
and "In
the Tyrol",
"The Bitter End" and
"The
Chase" by Thorne.

SONG

LEAD VOCALS

RATING

Help!

Lennon

10.0

The Night Before

McCartney

10.0

From Me to You Fantasy

(instrumental)

NR

You've Got to Hide Your Love Away

Lennon

10.0

I Need You

Harrison

7.4

In the Tyrol

(instrumental)

NR

Another Girl

McCartney

8.7

Another Hard Day's Night

(instrumental)

NR

Ticket to Ride

Lennon

10.0

The Bitter End/You Can't Do That

(instrumental)

NR

You're Gonna Lose That Girl

Lennon

10.0

The Chase

(instrumental)

NR

Ave.

9.4

REVIEW

First,
take a look at that rating I gave this LP, a 9.4! But that is very misleading (sorry, I
didn't mean it to be), as I didn't rate the instrumentals
- since they are not rock numbers, nor do any of the Beatles play on them, and in turn
these songs plain out suck! Well, other than one of them, the LPs closer, The
Chase, which actually is not that bad, but the rest of these songs are poor, I would
have a hard time rating them more than a 1.0 at best.

Like I
wrote up above, US Beatle fans got ripped off on this LP by Capitol. On the
UK Help!
version of this album, fans over there got 14 new Beatle songs to hear. In the US,
Capitol only included seven new Beatle songs, along with the five terrible non-Beatle
recorded instrumental songs. Why? Who knows for sure. But Beatle fans hated the
instrumentals, and Paul McCartney said it best We send it over here and they (Capitol) put the (movie
score) soundtrack on. And, you know, if someone is gonna buy one of our records I think
they want to hear us and not soundtrack.
No question Paul, thank goodness today we have CDs, which make it much easier to skip this
trash that shows up on an otherwise great album.

In fact, minus the instrumentals, this LP is a
masterpiece. Five of the seven Beatle songs are strong tens, including the
title cut, Help!, which John Lennon wrote in one night, as time was running
out on what they needed to pick for the movies title and main song. As John noted
years later, he was actually writing a plea for help when he jotted down the songs
lyrics, as that was his feelings with all the pressure he and his band mates were under at
the time.

John also
wrote three more of the LPs best tunes, Youre Gonna Lose That Girl,
You Got To Hide Your Love Away  where he tried to write a song in the
style of Bob Dylan, with the song's title about their gay manager Brian Epstein; and finally,
Ticket To Ride, even if I dont understand how John can claim this is one
of the first heavy metal songs made. I just dont hear that, but I do hear some great
lead guitar work in this song by Paul.

The last
great classic song on Help! is a song Paul
wrote, The Night Before. Not to take anything away for the two remaining
Beatle songs on here, Pauls Another
Girl and the George Harrison penned number I Need You.Just wish a few more of those other songs from the
UK LP could have found their way on here too.

All songs
written by Lennon/McCartney,
except Think for Yourself, written by George
Harrison

SONG

LEAD VOCALS

RATING

I've Just Seen a Face

McCartney

9.1

Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)

Lennon

10.0

You Won't See Me

McCartney w/ Lennon

8.3

Think for Yourself

Harrison

7.2

The Word

Lennon W/ McCartney

7.5

Michelle

McCartney

10.0

It's Only Love

Lennon

10.0

Girl

Lennon

10.0

I'm Looking Through You

McCartney

9.0

In My Life

Lennon

10.0

Wait

Lennon W/McCartney&
Harrison

8.0

Run for Your Life

Lennon

8.5

Ave.

8.94

REVIEW

Like the US release of Help!,
the Capitol Records repackaged version of Rubber Soul just didn't seem
as good as what the Beatles put together in the UK for Rubber Soul.
Too many excellent songs were dropped, but still, this is a master album, just missing a
few of its pieces; yet when rating each song on both LPs, well their final ratings are
pretty much the same.

The LP opens up with a song found on the UKHelp LP, Ive Just Seen A Face,
how nice of Capital to finally include this cool Paul McCartney song for us
US fans,
even if it ended up on the wrong LP! I still like Drive My Car, which lead off
the UK album, a lot more as a lead-off song, yet heck,
Drive My Car didnt even make it on to this US album; but still, US fans
didnt really know what they were missing at the time this was released.

The best songs on here are John Lennons "Norwegian
Wood", "In My Life" and Girl, along with the Lennon and Paul
McCartney co-written number "Michelle", which is sung by Paul. Really, all
the songs on here are excellent, even if they werent the way the Beatles wanted them
released on the album.